Fairy Tale Read Online Free

fragile to bear its blossom. Marsali looked accusingly at Duncan, temporarily forgetting herself. “You’ve frightened the life out of him.”
    “ I frightened him, did I?” Duncan glanced down in astonishment at the long angry scratches crisscrossing his shoulders.
    “Well, honestly, my lord, I did try to warn you. You can’t think I wear this hood on a warm summer day to appear the height of fashion.”
    Duncan’s mouth thinned in an ironic smile. “No, Marsali. It’s much more likely that you’re wearing the hood to conceal your identity. If you are in the habit of robbing hapless incomers, then there is probably a well-deserved price on your head.”
    “Not to mention a hawk,” Lachlan said, chuckling, only to subside into silence at the quelling look Duncan gave him.
    “Most hawks are trained to land on a man’s fist,” Duncan said dryly.
    “Eun isn’t trained at all,” Marsali retorted. “He was a fledging in a cliff that the soldiers blasted through for their roads. My uncle nursed him back to health, and the wee birdie’s been a bundle of nerves ever since.”
    Duncan did not reply, suddenly distracted by a movement behind her. One of the clansmen had retrieved Duncan’s waterlogged velvet jacket, hat, his knee breeches, sword belt, and jackboots from the tarn. Darting Duncan a sheepish grin, he deposited the soggy articles at Duncan’s feet before sidling back toward his kinsmen.
    Duncan stared down at the tadpoles swimming in the watery depths of tarn water that filled his boots. His blue eyes like ice, he raised his head and scanned the slack faces of the men he had the length of the summer to turn into a semblance of human dignity. Surely there was one man among them he could select as his successor. Pray God, let there be at least one.
    His gaze swept back to Marsali, wincing audibly at Eun’s agitated movements on her head. There were welts and nasty scratches on the skin of her shoulders too. Ridiculous girl.
    “I could have beheaded that creature, Marsali,” he said, indicating the long Toledo-steel sword he had lowered to his side, “if I were a man of less restraint.”
    She arched her delicately winged brow. “I do not doubt it, my lord.” She shifted her hand slightly to bring it up against her mount’s mane, revealing the flintlock pistol she was holding. “And I could have blasted you to kingdom come— if I were a woman of less restraint.”
    Rude sniggers of amusement erupted behind Duncan. He allowed a smile to touch his own lips. “I’m very afraid you’re going to wish you had done away with me, lass,” he said, then added softly, “after I’m through with you.” Someone behind Marsali gave a whistle of mock apprehension. Marsali’s face reflected only the tiniest flicker of concern. Then suddenly Eun, spying a fox racing toward its den, leaned forward and launched from her forehead into the blue June sky.
    She rubbed irritably at the red talon tracks on her scalp. “Do you mind explaining what you mean by the nature of that veiled threat, my lord?”
    “It is no veiled threat, lass,” he said. “As incredibly asinine as it appears, these men are acting on your orders, and as their leader, you shall be held responsible for their crimes.”
    “ I s it to be the bastinado or banishment?” she asked in mock alarm. “Or may I choose between public flaying and a firing squad?”
    “Dinna forget the finger pillory, lass,” one of the clansmen suggested in a jovial voice.
    Duncan’s blue eyes narrowed in warning that Marsali had stretched the limits of his patience. He raised his voice. “As the laird and chieftain of Clan MacElgin, I order you to sacrifice your summer as my maidservant in Castle MacElgin. You are to polish my boots, see that my wardrobe is in repair—”
    Marsali blinked, her composure almost cracking at this unexpected turn of events. Her, a maidservant? Of all the cheek. “I’m to what?”
    “Answer my correspondences, assuming you can